Jurupa Valley man dies after deputies' violent arrest captured on video
[ED: Or as it should read: Riverside County Police, who have long history of crime and brutality against minority populations, beat Indigenous and Latino man to death]
Disturbing video shows Riverside County sheriff's deputies violently arrest a suspect who they say tried to grab a security guard's gun. The suspect later died at a hospital.
The Riverside County Sheriff's Department said deputies responded to the 5500 block of Mission Boulevard in Jurupa Valley Tuesday night to investigate an assault with a deadly weapon.
Authorities say the suspect tried to grab a security guard's gun during the incident at a grocery store. They allege the suspect, identified as 33-year-old Ernie Serrano of Jurupa Valley, fought with the guard and then with deputies who were trying to detain him, but Serrano refused to comply with the deputies' commands.
Video shows one of the deputies repeatedly hit the suspect with a baton. Another deputy then tackles Serrano to the ground.
"After Serrano was taken into custody, deputies noticed that he appeared to have stopped breathing. Medical personnel on scene rendered aid and was able to obtain a pulse," the sheriff's department said in a news release.
Serrano was transported to a local hospital, where authorities say his condition worsened. He was later pronounced dead.
Serrano's family disputes that he tried to grab a weapon and say they are heartbroken by his death.
An autopsy is set for Monday.
Investigators from the Force Investigations Detail, Riverside County District Attorney Investigators and Riverside County Sheriff's Department Central Homicide Unit have assumed the investigation, which is ongoing, the department said.
Family Calling For ‘Justice For Ernie’: Jurupa Valley Man Dies After Violent Arrest By Riverside County Deputies
JURUPA VALLEY (CBSLA) — Five days ago, the lives of a Jurupa Valley family changed forever after 33-year-old Ernie Serrano died shortly after a violent arrest, some of which was captured on camera.
“Ernie did not deserve to die this way. I keep replaying it in my head. I wonder what he was thinking… did he know he was going to die?” said Serrano’s cousin, Mailena.
Deputies said Serrano tried to grab a security guard’s gun, and that’s why they took action against him.
According to Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, on December 15, deputies were responding to a report of an assault with a deadly weapon at a Jurupa Valley grocery store and trying to detain Serrano as a suspect.
They released a statement saying when their deputies arrived they saw Serrano fighting with a security guard, and at one point he tried to remove the guard’s firearm.
The department also says Serrano continued to fight with deputies and did not comply with commands.
Questions are now being raised about the arrest after cell phone video showed one deputy repeatedly striking Serrano with a baton at a check-out counter before others rushed in.
The sheriff’s department says that once in custody, Serrano stopped breathing and died at the hospital.
At a prayer vigil held outside the grocery store on Sunday, his mother spoke out, calling for “justice for Ernie,” and arguing that Serrano was not in the wrong, according to the cell phone video showing part of the incident.
“It’s about all lives matter,” she said. “They’re supposed to protect and serve not rush and kill. Nobody deserves to die like he did and he was not fighting back. He was not doing like they said he did.”
“He was not doing anything, any report of a fight with a security guard was long over even if that’s true,” one supporter said.
The family’s lawyers say they will file a legal claim on Monday and are immediately seeking to see the security video from the store that captured the full incident.
Serrano’s official cause of death has not yet been released.
The sheriff’s department says their investigation is continuing.
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A
Police are claiming overdose. Naturally, they're downplaying the part where they held him restrained as he struggled for air, so let's go ahead and move this from 'beaten to death' to 'asphyxiated due to police brutality'. The claim at an overdose is farcical, and it is high time we began applying the rule that you take your victim as you find them to the police.
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A
It's a fairly standard legal principle. Basically, if I find someone with a watch and club them over the head to steal it, and they die because their skull was unusually frail (the eggshell skull rule is a common name for it for precisely this reason), then it doesn't matter that I couldn't have reasonably foreseen that they were specially vulnerable. The same principle ought to be applied to the police in every circumstance in which their use of force leads to a death: here, that 'he was on drugs and OD'd' or 'he was on drugs and his heart gave out' should not be available as a defence or mitigating factor to any murder rising out of the unreasonable or unnecessary use of force,
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A
